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Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

My Life With Laura – Book Blog Tour Interview

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Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Author Chad Moutray and his daughter Charlotte
Author Chad Moutray and his daughter Charlotte

 I am proud today to host Chad Moutray, author of My Life With Laura: A Love Story, on my blog today. Chad is on a blog book tour to promote his book and this is his 6th stop to spend some time discussing his book. While the book details his courtship, wedding, family and then their battle with his wife’s breast cancer, I am going to focus on his efforts as a male caregiver as I am the only male on his book tour and I hope to shed some insight on “the other half” of breast cancer. 

I’ve always said, Route 53 is a blog of my journey through life and while I say each of us has our own journey, we often run parallel with others for part of that road.  Some of us drive fast along that road and others a little slower. These roads are what I call life stages and are created by life events.  Chad and I have separately shared a life event as both of us became caregivers for our wives who had/have breast cancer.  Unfortunately breast cancer seems to be all around us these days days (statistics say 1 in 8 U.S. women will have breast cancer in their lifetime). You might think nothing of it, but in Chad, I found someone who not only went the extra mile for his wife, but truly lays his soul out there for everyone to read in his book.  Sadly, the book does not end happily as Chad’s wife lost a valiant battle. 

 In his book, Chad provides us with the often forgotten perspective on not only the fight against breast cancer, but the emotions surrounding the co-survivor or surviving spouse.  As I read the book, I had to read it away from my wife as it was so easy to put myself in Chad’s shoes.  His story could very easily have been my own.  I hope that other men read it and think of how they would react or want to react if they were put in Chad’s shoes.  Below is my interview with Chad about his book:

Route53: Chad, we’ve shared some chats and emails in recent months.  I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but first let me say that I didn’t know Laura, but have met many “Laura and Chads” over the past several months and am sorry about the loss of your wife and Charlotte’s mother.

Chad Moutray: Yes, sadly, there are too many people in our same situation.  That is why I think that this book has been so well received.  Thank you for your condolences for Laura’s passing.

Route53: Let’s first talk about the inspiration for the book.  I know you say that this book was written for your daughter Charlotte so that she could read about her mom before the memories faded and maybe got a little distorted.  As I read the book, I couldn’t help but see another purpose.  This book was written for many and not just Charlotte.  I read it as a place to put all your love and memories in a safe place so that you could move on.  Maybe in a cathartic way.  How much of this book would you say today (besides Charlotte) is this book for you, for others fighting the battle against cancer, for her family, and for her friends?

Chad Moutray: My original thoughts for the book were to help Charlotte better know her mother.  In fact, the book in dedicated to her, who was two-years-old at the time that I started writing.  (She is now almost four.)  But after I started writing, several friends and family members told me that they wanted to read my book when it was finished.  I had a log of pent-up demand, each of whom was anxious for my to publish my memoir so that they could read it.  In that way, I began writing the book knowing that it could be read by many people, some of whom I did not know.  Since its release, I have been proud of the fact that so many people have appreciated the book and have been inspired by Laura’s strength and faith in battling her breast cancer. Yes, I found that writing the book was therapeutic for me.  In the months after Laura’s death, it gave me a project to work on during those quiet moments in the house.  It also allowed me to reflect on the times that I spent with Laura, both good and bad, and more importantly, it provided me a forum to put my thoughts on paper.  I would encourage anyone going through a loss to start writing, whether they make their words public or not.

Route53: For me, the hardest part of the book was reading Laura’s journal entry to you and about what she wanted for you and Charlotte.  My wife felt close to doing the same thing so I felt like I was reading my wife’s own letter.  When did you first read that entry and how much does it enter your mind to this day?

Chad Moutray: Men, of course, are taught to never read their girlfriend’s or wife’s journal, and I did not open them until after Laura’s death.  I was surprised by many of her entries.  She expressed her thoughts on daily life, her frustrations with motherhood and then in battling breast cancer, and her religious inspirations.  Some of these entries were difficult for me to read.  I was particularly touched by the letter that you cite, but mostly, I was surprised at its timing.  She wrote about her desires for Charlotte and me after her death … but it was written over one year before she passed away at a time when the thought of this was far from most of our minds.  While I did not read this letter until later, much of it sounded familiar, as she and I had discussed some of it in the months before her death.

Route53: Every woman who finds out she has breast cancer remembers the phone call or the doctor giving the diagnosis.  I think husbands do remember too.  I know I do and I know you do.  I often get women who write me saying they wish their husband was as supportive and I always think that the moment you hear is when you know how you will be.  You and I both took that step forward instead of back   To what do you attribute your strength in the face of Laura’s battle with cancer?  What made you the supporting husband that you were?

Chad Moutray: I would refer to two things.  First, I remember my grandfather growing up.  My grandma had a number of heart attacks and was often hospitalized. He remained a beacon of strength throughout her ordeals (despite the fact that she survives him by almost thirty years), and it left an indelible imprint for me on the role of the “man” in such situations.  You are to be a “rock” – someone who everyone looks to for support.  You can see much of this in my actions during this time.  In public and in front of Laura, I was that “rock” even when I was privately hurting inside.   Second, like Laura, I relied more and more on my faith, growing more spiritual as time progressed.

Route53:  What would you say Laura’s battle with cancer taught you about yourself?  Has it changed you or your actions at all?

Chad Moutray: It changed me forever.  I am a different person today than before.  Yes, life goes on, and it has for me.  But, I have a different outlook, and I feel compelled to “give back” to the many people who were so helpful to us during our struggle.  In some ways, the book also is my expression of this.  I tried to write an honest book that showed the true challenges of battling cancer, and in that way, it appears to have helped or inspired some of the cancer families who have read it.

Route53: You mentioned that you hid your fears from Laura and when you did open up, she tried to protect you.  I found the same with my wife.  According to a US News and World Report story, they say the men who are successful in coping as breast cancer caregivers for their wife do two things:  1) Rather than try to be “fixers”, they lend an ear to help with coping and 2) They share everything together.  What are your thoughts on that?

Chad Moutray: As the “rock” that I mentioned earlier, I never let Laura see my emotions.  In hindsight, that was probably a mistake.  Laura would have preferred that I had expressed myself more to her.  Had I done that sooner, she might not have tried to protect me later. 

Route53:  As Laura’s primary caregiver, what were your main resources of information about Breast Cancer that you think would be helpful for other spouses?

Chad Moutray: I relied on information from books, handouts, and the Internet.  Laura, to be honest, relied on these sources even more than I did.  But, my most important source of information was the doctors themselves.  I tried to go to as many of the doctors visits as I could.  This allowed me to show my support for Laura, but it also ensured that I knew as much about her treatments and progress as she did.  Sometimes, the doctors provided an enormous amount of information during a short visit, and she would often comment that it was good to have two sets of ears listening to it.  

Route53: If you could pick one thing, what did someone do specifically for you, the caregiver, to help you through the year and half fight against breast cancer?

Chad Moutray: We had tremendous support from family and friends.  Our church, for instance, was always there providing meals, rides, care for Charlotte, or someone to talk to.  I cannot see how we would have been able to do all that we did without this support.  In later months, we relied on lotsahelpinghands.com to post our needs, get volunteers, and communicate Laura’s progress.  This was a godsend which helped ease the burden of caring for Laura at a time when her health continued to deteriorate.

Route53: When I read the book, I was amazed at all that you accomplished in just a year and half of cancer in your lives.  Can you point to one moment or thing that you did that made you feel that you made Laura’s last days on this Earth richer and less painful?

Chad Moutray: Laura did not let cancer stop her from doing things, and our oncologist supported her in this.  We went on a number of vacations, including to Aruba and two other beach trips in the summer of 2007.  These trips were a lot of fun, and Laura looked forward to each one.  She was also the type who put things on the calendar hoping that we might go to them.  One of those was a wine tasting event at Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home, in the fall of 2007.  By that point, Laura was in a wheelchair, but she still wanted to go; we went on a double-date with another couple.  It was our last date together, but one that I will never forget.  (This story is not in the book.)  She clearly life to the end.

Route53: Sometimes “bad husbands” who abandon their wives when they can’t handle the stress give men a bad name in the fight against breast cancer.  Actually a 1999 Canadian Study called, “Marital Stability After Breast Cancer” found that there was no difference in divorce rates and separation  when looking at similar groups of men with wives who had breast cancer and those who did not.  Stories like yours obviously give men a better reputation.  If you could give advice to other men (and wives) out there who are going through rough times in their battle, what would you tell them?

Chad Moutray: Life does not always go according to plan, and it is easy to say the cliche, “That is not what I signed up for” and call it quits.  Laura and I met, fell in love, got married, and had a child; it was the typical life plan.  But, then it changed, and life became difficult.  Many of our friends went on to have second or even third babies, and Laura was secretly jealous of them.  Cancer was not what she signed up for either.  We were a young couple and kept hoping for a miracle. When things deteriorated, it was not easy; I prayed for patience, and I was stretched thin.  To be honest, though, I never considered abandoning Laura.  After she passed away, several women came up to me and told me how impressed they were that I stayed with Laura until the end.  The comment surprised me.  I loved my wife, and Laura and Charlotte needed me too much.

Route53: Last, please give us an update on Charlotte and your state of mind.  Have you fully been able to move on?  Now that it has been over a year, have you seen any emotional scars for Charlotte?

Chad Moutray: Laura will always be in my mind.  Charlotte will guarantee that; in addition to being Laura’s daughter, she looks exactly like Laura.  Such a constant reminder makes it difficult at times.  Yet, life moves on.  Writing the book helped a lot, and after several months, I began to date again.  This was awkward at first, but easier now.  It helped that Laura was so insistent that I move on and find someone nice to help raise Charlotte (even to the point of trying to set me up); the fact that she said this to so many people made it easier for others to accept my dating, as well.  As far as Charlotte, she is adjusting to full-time daycare and is doing okay.  She still talks about her mother and can tell you that her mother died from cancer … but has no idea what cancer is.  Someday, I hope that she enjoys my book and learns about how fun her mother was and how strong she was.  

Route53: Chad, once again, thank you, Laura, and Charlotte for sharing your story with all of us. I know that I have found much empathy and inspiration from your story. Chad’s book can be purchased here: http://www.lulu.com/content/1828195

 Please continue to follow the blog book tour by following this link to the schedule:

 http://moutray.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/blog-book-tour-schedule/

 Addendum to Post:

Every book means something different for each person.  Although my wife suffers from breast cancer, I read it as a love story.  Even the parts about cancer were about love for me.  Below is an excerpt from an email I shared with Chad after finishing his book.  I hope you all find his book as inspiring as it was for me:
  
I just wanted to let you know that I finished the book.  I admit that I did not feel comfortable reading anything after your eulogy as those letters I feel are words for Charlotte.  I have to say that the book read faster for me once I got to her part with cancer.  Perhaps it was that it was all so familiar to me.  My feelings were similar to yours in many ways and reading her journal entry to you was tough for me.  I hope you don’t mind , but I have discussed your book with the husband’s group at our clinic as you have gone through and they are experiencing many things that I did not have to endure.  I’m also going to pass the book along to one of the fathers at our school who lost his wife at the beginning of the school year leaving he and his two young sons behind.
Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Mind Over Matter

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Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.  ~Winston Churchill

As most runners know, there are times when you hit the proverbial “wall”.  I’ve found that it doesn’t matter whether you are running one fast mile or 5 long ones, the wall is always there. Your body aches and screams for you to stop but it is your mind that powers you on.

In a way I have hit that wall in caring for my wife.  That tough edge has been hard to keep up lately.  I’m not giving up on her though.  In fact her strength is coming back and I’ve been able to let my guard down a bit and that has allowed me to move on a little bit.  i think she is showing me that strength again to let me know that I can go on too.  She has now started going on and doing her own research online.  It has relieved me from having to read some of the more tragic or difficult stories online.  I used to go on Breastcancer.org to find answers but lately she has found a few good friends with the same physicians and they have encouraged her, helped her to mentally get stronger to face her fears, and she is spending more time talking to other women online.

She still is fragile though.  I just got back from being away four days in Las Vegas at a convention.  It was very difficult to be away from her and to leave her with no back-up.  Our nightly calls were more about wondering if she was okay.  It was also about telling my 9-year old son to watch out and take care of his mom.  I’m hoping that I don’t scare him, but I see great maturity in him.  I always have see it since he was little baby.  He just had this “old sage soul” look about him.  At the same time he still has the other issues that little boys have, not cleaning up, not lifting the toilet seat, and not slowing down around the house.  All in all he’s a good kid though and I trust him immensely.  My favorite moment (you’ll see the relevance below) is when he was 7 and as an advanced reader had picked up an encyclopedia to look up the word embryo, a word he had heard on Animal Planet.  The next thing you know he is telling me that apes and humans are very simliar and that men have sperm and women have eggs, but they don’t lay them like chickens.  My daughter (5 at the time) stood behind her brother with her arms crossed and looking at me as if to say, “Hey, what’s the big idea?”  well let’s just say I don’t think I’ll ever have to have the bird and the bees talk with my chilldren ever.  Hopefully that is a fatherly chore that I won’t miss.

It has been 5 weeks now since my wife’s latest surgery and I have had a hard time honestly looking at her scars and even at her chest.  Tonight she wanted to start documenting and had me take a few photos of her reconstruction.  I was a little nervous.  It was the first chance for me to take a look.  It is hard for me to look at my beautiful wife with her scars and say that they look great only because I know she is able to sense any hesitation or trepidation in my voice.  It is still early and even she knows they aren’t quite ready to be looked at.  She is going to need to get some revisions as the original scars haven’t healed straight.  She will have a follow up appointment on March 23.  It should be an hour procedure. 

The hard part was that today the doctor called to make the appointment and our 9 year old son listened in on the other line when my wife was talking.  He later told my wife that he had listened.  He is really worried that his mother is going to have a third surgery and asked if she was going to be okay.  Our daughter caught on and told us that she thought we got rid of “mommy’s lump”.  We told them that just like we need to go to the doctor every year that mommy needs to go every month and that she was lucky that her doctors could spend so much time with her.  Listening to her talk to the children I realized she is getting stronger.  She doesn’t want them to worry.  She is even telling me she will just need local anaesthesia for the final surgery.  I would prefer general if it were me but she is game.  She told me she knows she can “handle it” .  I told her that I didn’t think it would be a good idea but she’s the strong one when it comes to blood and guts and told me I was getting soft and where was the guy who stripped her drains 4 months ago?  We had a good chuckle.

All this means to me is that my wife is almost fully back and I couldn’t be happier.  She’s taught me a lot about myself and our relationship over the past several months.  It has been painful and although there are times we wanted to give up, but somehow we’ve built the strength from each other and kept moving and pushed through that wall.  The aches and pains are still there but the goal line or finish line is still out there on the horizon. 

Life goes on and we’re traveling down the road together.  We’re helping each other out and making sure the other doesn’t give up and that we don’t give up on each other.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Keeping the Family Together

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Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving. – Katherine Hepburn

I found the quote above on a site about Spousal Caregiving and it really hit home.  We’re done with all the surgeries yet this week my wife had three days in the hospital and if you thought the waiting was excruciating before and during the surgeries, it is only worse now.  I guess it is like they say about Chinese Restaurants.  You know it is good and authentic if Chinese people work there and it is busy and filled with Chinese people.  I think the same goes with a breast cancer clinic.  If you have to wait hours even if you have an appointment, then your doctor must be real good.

Last night my wife spent 4 hours at the hospital for a shot, a visit with the nurse practitioner to go over her side effects from her clinical trial, and then to visit with her rock star oncologist.  You are wondering why?  Well the reason is that she spends so much time caring and listening to each patient that she does fall behind that most people understand.  Today was a follow up meeting with the plastic surgeon.  My wife has some nip-tuck things she wanted to have taken care of  he took a look.  and told her to book some time.  We checked his schedule but we’re talking about mid-April!!  Well his wonderful nurse said to book a time but if we could do something on four days notice, we could get something done pretty quick if we just sit on stand-by. 

My travel schedule looks crazy already this year and I just hate being away from my family, especially now.  Today was the first day that I had to watch my son practice his basketball.  He’s good at it.  Not great, but the joy on his face is all that I care about.  I drove him home and started to talk about how he could be better, but realized that telling a kid on a Friday afternoon about the nuances of practicing hard and being a floor leader were just not something he wanted to hear.  I chuckled at myself, “Come on dad, it’s just practice”.  I was just trying to make up for my missing his first game of the season as well as his favorite thing…the annual Little League Skills Assessment Day.  Last year I was so nervous watching him that my stomach was in knots. All these men with clipboards and stopwatches taking notes on my 8 year old, 55 pound kid as if he was some kind of bonus baby.  Well he did well enough to be put in the elite group where they take the top kids and spread them evenly so no one team is overly loaded with skilled players.  This year my wife gets the fun duty.  It did feel good though to spend some time alone with my son.

Despite the stress of today’s waiting at the hospital we were able to have an early dinner as my daughter was requesting some family time.  Fortunately my flight was late and we could squeeze it in (amazing as I still only arrived at the airport 40 minutes before my flight on a Friday night).  My daughter has such a nurturing nature about her for a 6 year old.  She loves her older brother and she is always looking after her mom and telling me when she is doing something that she doesn’t think my wife should be doing (yes, she is a bit of a tattle tale in that way).  She cares deeply and is sensitive to the fabric of our little quadrangle of a family. 

I guess Katherine Hepburn was right…..you do what you do when you truly care.

I did buy some tickets for Valentine’s Day for the two of us.  Hopefully my mom won’t mind having her grandchildren over as her Valentine’s.  I really need to get my wife alone and see her have that smile back on her face.  When we lived in the New York Metro area, Valentine’s was a big day when I courted her.  We usually planned one big meal where we would eat at a top 20 NYC restaurant.  I remember those Valentine’s Days 20 years later!  We’d have to make a reservation before Thanksgiving to get any of our choice restaurants in NYC. Ah…to be young again….

I did pick up the Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama at the airport tonight.  I was curious.  It almost reads a little too highbrow like a lawyer wrote it.  I’m sure the intellectual Democrats follow it, but I’m not sure if the average joe on the street Democrat would really follow.  I’m not big on politics personally as I feel like it is a topic that divides and not brings people together so you might not see much about my political opinions here…and that is a good thing.

Take care of your bodies….

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

My Life With Laura Blog Book Tour & FightPink.org

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If you’re going through hell, keep going.  ~Winston Churchill

Before I begin my post for today I want to thank Stacy from FightPink.org.  Stacy was kind enough to post my original three blog posts on her site in the co-survivor section of her website.  I hadn’t read them in a while and it seems like years ago since I wrote them, but I’m glad she found them and felt they were worthy of posting.  I hope someone finds them useful.

I also want to make sure anyone who reads this post to come back here on January 19th, Martin Luther King Day.  I will be hosting an interview on the Blog Tour for Chad Moutray’s book, My Life with Laura – A Love Story.  It is a love story which ends sadly when Chad and his wife lose their battle with breast cancer.  Chad is having a blog tour about his book and several of us have read it.  I encourage you to follow the different dates on his two week tour of many different blogs.  Here is a link to his schedule:

Today flew by for me, but I can say it was a full day of thinking, laughing, and eight glasses of water to fight my voice which is pretty weak right now.  I received an email that made me laugh.  The person asked me why I was posting “Celebrity Sightings” on my Cancer Blog!  Yes, my life is moving in a different direction.  Cancer still stares us in the face and will occasionally be on topic for the next several years as my wife faces her post-cancer trials and therapy.

In fact as I worked up some interview questions for Chad, I was thinking about the predicament that many men are put in when their wives discover they have breast cancer.  We have to be strong, silent, empathetic, and unselfish all at once.  Some of us have not even had practice at one of those things.  That does not even begin to talk about the tasks that we need to serve as cook, provider, chief information officer, Florence Nightengale, joe the plumber and many other things I can’t remember.  Let’s face it, men just don’t have a good rap as caregivers.  When I was faced with those many hours sitting in the waiting room, I hated being the only husband sitting in the room with a young wife.  Where were the other husbands?  Face it, the waiting room of a breast cancer clinic was no place for a man.  All those glamour and cooking magazines.  I was left to read last year’s ESPN Spring Training Preview where they picked the Detroit Tigers to win it all (boy were they wrong).  I started bringing  in more current magazines on business, sports, photography, and travel.  By the time my father-in-law made it to his first and only visit with his daughter to the doctor (5 months after her original diagnosis) , all he could tell me about was the marvelous skiing magazines they had. My wife and I could only smile.

In those hours of waiting, I did discover the bulletin board which was full of community groups to help with coping.   I wandered around the Clinic’s Cancer Resource Center  which was helpful and I met a few men and befriended a few sharing stories about our wife’s situation then asking if we knew the score from last night’s basketball game.

What I realize was missing when I was working on my questions for Chad was a primer on what to do.  I had gathered so many articles and written so many notes and resources that I put together a small guide.  I think it would be a great set of readings for husbands, so I’ve packaged them together as a reading list for our surgeons and oncologists to give to their patients and spouses.  Even though my wife has passed her surgery stage of chemo I just feel like we owe so much to those that will follow behind us.

So what’s the status with my wife?  Well she still has scars and is dealing with letting them heal.  There is always some mention of them every night.  I keep reminding her that time heals all wounds.  I hate those words.  Who said that anyway?  She has four visits to the clinic this week.  The first was to check on her suture which opened up.  Tomorrow she gets one of her monthly suppression shot to reduce the amount of estrogen that feeds the type of cancer they removed from her, then she meets the following day with her oncologist to go over her clinical trial.  The trial is called S0307 and is a bisphosphonate trial primarily for pre-menopausal women.  Bisphosphonates are a group of drugs that have strong effects on the bones and have been shown to strengthen the bones in many patients who take them. This study will compare three study drugs, ibandronate, clodronate, and zoledronic acid in breast cancer.   My wife is taking clodronate.  The study will take place for 3 years.  My wife will be taking Tamoxifen for 5 years.    She has seen some minimal side effects but we just say that it shows the treatment is doing something. I try not to make a too big deal about it as I want her to feel like it is a normal thing we are ready to deal with. 

I know this is a weird note to end this blog, but I had a great run tonight and at the end, my iPod had a congratulations message from Tiger Woods for running my fastest time yet.  This was a pleasant surprise and I can’t wait to run faster tomorrow.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

We’re a Family Again – The Highway of Life

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“Let’s keep our batteries charged as things usually get worse before they get better”

Almost a month since surgery and we seem and more importantly, feel, like we can do some normal things again.  As we had no appointments this past week, there was nothing to break up our schedule and we had what we might term to be a “normal family weekend”.  As we sat around the table at our favorite sushi restaurant on Sunday night, we had our team meeting about what we had going on this week (playdates, practices, appointments, etc.) we reviewed the past week with our children to ask them how they were doing and what they enjoyed.  Our son said he enjoyed playing in his first golf tournament.  Our daughter said that she enjoyed “being a family again”.  When we asked what that meant she said she enjoyed going out to dinner, going to her soccer game, and even playing a family board game  with all of us present.

She was right.  It was the first time we had energy to do things together rather than split up or outsource parenting to our friends and family.  We were smiling and laughing again.  The sushi dinner was never mentioned as such, but it was our first real time we had gone out together in a month for a meal and thus served as a bit of a celebration.  We needed the break, the laughs, the down time and I think we really needed to lavish our children with much needed attention.

They have seen and heard so much and partly because of their naivety and partly because they are mature for their age, they were able to process their feelings. Unfortunately, I think it wore on them to see their parents not having the fun they used to have and seeing their mom’s sunny disposition remain sunny, but at a cost of her strength.  Our daughter’s comment raised some flags for us to make sure we focused on them during the coming weeks especially if chemo becomes part of the equation.

Today marked the third of 5 appointments with the plastic surgeon post-surgery.  He says she is progressing okay but we’ll have to see how things are going with chemo to know our full schedule.  We have our 1st appointment with the oncologist on Thursday morning so we are a bit nervous.  I just wish we’d know a little more before we go in the first time to meet with her.  She’ll definitely tell us about the Tamoxifin (sp?) but all we are worried nabout now is the Oncotype score reading.  We are bracing for her to tell us she will need chemo and agreed that we just need to get our batteries charged and braced for the coming months ahead.   It is just natural to assume things will get worse before they get beetter.  In a peverse way we both agreed that everything so far has actually not been as bad as we thought it would be, but we have run across some things we never thought we’d encounter.

On this highway of life, cancer has been more than a bump in the road, but  a very windy detour that we hope leads back to the main road and let’s us get back to destinations unknown with many life adventures to discover.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

5 More Days with Drains – Post Breast Cancer Surgery

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“It ain’t over til it’s over”

Well today was our post -op visit with the plastic surgeon.  We did learn that an initial 150ccs were inserted and he put in another 100 today.  If chemo is needed he will likely be almost done with everything before then. 

It was the first time I’d seen him smile too.  We got to know him a little more as he fixed her dressings again and injected more fluid.  Luckily they gave us more bandages because the nurse did not apply the dressings appropriately and my wife was leaking vascular fluid.  When I got home, my wife asked me to reapply the gauze and bandages.  This was actually the toughest job yet.  We had just hit the weekend and hopefully I did it right or someone would have to take my wife back in this weekend.  It was frankly a little too close  for me.

We still were not ready to remove the drains and they recommended keeping them in another 5 days. Ugggh.  I saw the sadness in her eyes.  I know they are uncomfortable for her and when they tried to push the date to next Friday I knew we had to fight for a Wednesday appointment.  I guess the fighting isn’t done yet.  It ain’t over til its over I told her.  She apologized that I still had to drive her everywhere and I told her no apology was necessary.  How anyone does this alone is just brutal,  She needs to be able to get out and become mobile again and I know she is getting antsy.  The drains are definitely not pleasant to look at for sure and cannot be that comfortable.

We at least have our next three appointments settled for the plastic surgeon, the removal of the drains, and the initial meeting with our oncologist who is supposedly one of the best nationally so we feel very fortunate that she is able to take our case.

Other than the darned trains and discomfort she is feeling okay after today’s procedure.  i guess that is easy for me to say, but I’m sure going to be glad when the coming week is over.  I know she is thinking the same thing.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

Keeping a Good Woman Down – 8 days post Breast Cancer Mastectomy

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“Lay Low, people might think you are back to normal”

My wife’s drains are down to about 30ccs a day and it really varies based upon the amount of movement she has in a day.  She has been getting antsy and everyone keeps remarking how they are amazed to be seeing her sending tons of emails as always.  I also seem to be getting more phone calls from my wife who is supposed to be laying in bed and resting.  She spent one day talking on the phone for 3 hours and her drainage went up. 

Today I came home to find her having taken out all the trash, done a couple loads of laundry and sent out bunches of emails as well as watered all the flowers that she had received.  I told her if she didn’t cut it out I was going to tell everyone she was fine and they didn’t need to send meals or help anymore.  They say it’s hard to keep a good man down.  It’s worse with women.  I say that kiddingly of course.  She’s just itching to get out.  I pampered her tonight with another bathing.  It’s our alone time after the kids go to sleep.  Yep, just lean her back over the tub and give her a long shampoo and conditioning.  I could see her finally relaxing and just closing her eyes.  Yep, that’s how you keep a good woman down.

She’s still worried a little about losing hair from chemo but some friends have mentioned a shampoo that is supposed to help you not lose your hair.  Me, I’m concerned about her bandages and being afraid to look at ther chest.  We’re also wondering about that first bill that is going to come.   Our plan pays 90% of the bill but that will still leave us with a large bill to pay.  Now they are asking if we would like an ONCA which judges your possibility of recurrence.  The problem is that insurance pays very little of this $3500 test.  All I know is that my MIL had this surgery 25 years ago and is still cancer free.  That’s a good enough test for me, but it is her decision.

Tomorrow is the visit with the breast surgeon and she’ll go over the pathology report with us.  She’ll also recommend an oncologist for us.

Tonight we had our first family game night in a couple weeks and the kids really enjoyed it.  We forget how sensitive they are and we need to maintain our focus and keep them engaged  I told my wife that the kids are the main healing point for us and they are picking up on every vibe we give them.